The Strategic Economic Development Council met Tuesday and discussed coming up with a \u201cwhite paper\u201d on the current state of issues on contract worker labor shortages amid the economic boom.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce we get all that, or before we get to that point we have to go out and tell the community what we are faced with. We are once again in a dire situation,\u201d said council vice chair Marian Aldan-Pierce. \u201cThe private sector and public sector really need to work together and partner.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything\u2014workers, infrastructure,\u201d Pierce said when asked what data they needed. \u201cThe council wants to look at everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to present it to the governor and our delegate in Washington and go to the U.S. Congress because there are something things that we need that is going to take a Congressional act to change,\u201d Aldan-Pierce said, acknowledging that this white paper would \u201cinform\u201d lobbying efforts in the Capitol.<\/p>\n
According to the discussion agenda Tuesday, the council discussed a resolution to the contract worker issue and how to \u201cvalidate CW numbers,\u201d and how and when to hire a Washington, D.C. consultant with private and sector funds.<\/p>\n
The council also discussed a \u201cdevelopment cap.\u201d<\/p>\n
Council members acknowledged that this discussion would have to tie into government obligations and responsibilities like the over $100 million in land compensation and settlement claims, the $700 million in retiree settlement agreement, and the local utility\u2019s court stipulated orders, in order to \u201cresponsibly\u201d inform a \u201ccap\u201d on controlled developed, Saipan Tribune learned. <\/p>\n
The cap could cover hotel room\u2019s investors coming into the CNMI, and a cap on the use of public land, among others, Saipan Tribune learned.<\/p>\n
Talks for a need of 15,000 to 35,000 workers in the CNMI reportedly have been broached to meet growing development demands.<\/p>\n
The CNMI faces the expiration of its local contract worker program in 2019. These workers provide much of the labor force for the local economy and would need Congressional action to extend or replace with a new visa class catered to the CNMI\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Strategic Economic Development Council met Tuesday and discussed coming up with a \u201cwhite paper\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[26,38,10360,244],"class_list":["post-223327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-cnmi","tag-saipan-tribune","tag-sedc","tag-utility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}